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Post by nzhb on Jan 7, 2016 23:37:34 GMT
Our daughter has been at a senior school for 1 term - transfer in Y8
She has EHCp,Pupil Premium. Complex needs - rare chromosome disorder,adhd ( medicated),asperger's traits, conduct disorder,sensory processing difficulties,short term memory recall difficulties, obsessional behaviour.
Prior to transfer we did lots research on school. Ed Psyche assurred us she could manage in mainstream.
So here, we are.
School started off by allowing her to stay 2 hrs, then 3, now she can stay up until lunch. It has been like this for over 1/2 a term now.
No plans in place to move forward with this.
At break she isn't allowed to mix with other students - has to go to adult supervised learning unit. Sometimes she is able to have one friend with her.
She is escorted all over the school - to the toilet, snack shop, to lessons & has an LSA with her in class.
She has a behaviour 'log' in every lesson which is fed back to the 'inclusion' staff.
As you can imagine she feels suffocated,
We did not know this was going to be school's plan when we sent her there. Had we known we might have chosen another school.
We have a meeting next week - I have a feeling the school don't want us to remain at the school. SENCO has twice referred to my child as damaged and said that what she really needs is a nice middle class Pupil Referral Unit !
My child was also told she couldn't join in with Xmas celebrations on last day of term as she wasn't behaving well enough & had recently had a 2 day exclusion for kicking a boy in front of his class.( Boy not completely innocent in the matter) So I kept her home from school & we did something much nicer!
THis is a school that assured me they were experienced with adopted children & attachment disorder & special needs. However they now say they have very high standards for their pupils and everyone is expected to reach them.....
sounds to me like a school that doesn't exist for children, but the children exist to produce outstanding results & meet government targets.
As you can guess we are feeling very fed up currently - not least because daughter unhappy & we are finding it very difficult to manage the luchtime pickups as we both work.
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Post by jmk on Jan 8, 2016 4:06:58 GMT
I'm no expert on schools, but that sounds to me like the school have grossly underestimated DD's needs when they agreed to take her on and that they are struggling to cope. Not your problem as it sounds as if you were very clear with them beforehand, but it does sound awful for DDvand very oppressive if she is being monitored the entire time with no let up. And finishing at lunchtime everyday, what is that about, that is ridiculous.
I think I would speak to your Virtual Head and your Parent Partnership to ask for their advice. It sounds to me as if they are failing DD.
I'm sure others with more school experience than I will be along soon with advice.
Hugs to you, it is so hard when you feel you might have made the wrong choice and it is so important to have a supportive environment for your child to be educated
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Post by pluto on Jan 8, 2016 7:07:39 GMT
Sounds to me a special needs child what needs a special needs school. Unless she gets great marks and manages just fine with a few hours school, this does not make sense. What's she doing in the afternoons? If she's not great academically she needs more hours school not less. what are your goals for her? What does she need for that? Diploma's, skills? At this rate I do not think she's really learning, she's just being managed in school.
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Post by elderberry on Jan 8, 2016 7:38:18 GMT
I sent my daughter off to a secondary school that promised they could cope, too. We had meetings with them before she started and after. And we also ended up with her not being allowed into the playground and spending days on end in internal exclusion. I also came across this continual insistence that everyone is expected to meet the school's standards and no exceptions can be made.
It was about this time last year that my fabulous PASW finally demanded an emergency statement review. The school were more than happy to get rid of her, so I had their support too. It was clear to me that there was no point in moving her to another mainstream school, even though we also had an Ed Psych report that said she could handle mainstream. It took the rest of the school year, but a lot of heads were banged together at three different departments of the LA and a lot of money was finally stumped up, in our case not just for a special school but for a residential special school due to the way her school experience was overflowing into home.
I can't say it has solved all the problems, indeed it has created quite a few new ones especially for me, but I have no doubt that it's the best thing that could have happened to her, and the fact that we got her out before she was expelled can only have been a good thing. She is finally learning something, she finally feels noticed and appreciated, and I am no longer having to deal with the sheer nightmare of homework.
I know we've been lucky and that many, many children never get the support they need. But all I can say is that it's worth pushing. And I would strongly advise that you choose the sort of school you actually want for your daughter and stick to your guns. If you don't think she's going to manage in mainstream, don't let them push you into just moving her from one school to another.
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Post by milly on Jan 8, 2016 10:30:50 GMT
I'm not sure what to say as your dd sounds similar in many ways to mine and some of tbe provision she gets is also similar. She moved school last year (old school wanted rid, and things were deteriorating badly). New school not keen to keep her but since she's had an EHC things have been a lot better. But it took a while to negotiate what support was needed and how to use it. Luckily one of tbe assistant heads got involved (ie someone with power) and we were able to convince him of what she needed.
So she does have TA support for every lesson (and an after school club one day a week). The support is mainly for emotional issues though she does need some support with her work too. The TAs don't hover over dd but are there if she wants them. At first the school didn't accept they needed to provide someone for every lesson as dd can be absolutely fine, but they changed their minds after she ended up hurting someone in a lesson when no TA was there (she was provoked - but she's very easy to provoke especially when she feels anxious).
So basically they came to understand that the support helps her relax and being relaxed helps her engage in lessons and avoids incidents. DH and I had several meetings with the assistant head at the beginning of last term to get this point across - we were pretty forceful and challenged him in many ways.But finally he could see we were right and said he wanted dd to stay till the end of year 11 (result - as it felt they were committed to her)
However there were issues at lunchtime and in the final lesson still ( Luckily they only have one lesson after lunch) so up till half term she came home at lunchtime which worked for us as DH works from home. It also meant dd could do her homework in the pm before she got tired / ADHD meds wore off.
After half term she gradually started staying for lunch and last lesson. They started with days where she really liked the last lesson or she had social skills or mentoring session. By tbe end of last term she was up to a full week but if she starts to struggle again I'd be happy for her to reduce again.
She doesn't have supervision for lunch / toilet etc but the school have an SEN lunch club and she agreed to go to this when she realised she couldn't stay for lunch if she didn't (in spite of her anxiety she is very keen to be at school). She has made friends through the club and I think it's been good for her to realise other kids have SEN too.
We looked into SEN schools but they were either a long way off or not suitable and we feel she can manage mainstream with the right support though it's not ideal. There is a great private school nearby which we put her down for but no place came up and now she has the EHC we have decided to stick with where she is.
So I don't think it's impossible for your dd yo stay where she is but you definitely need to negotiate with them. Can you contact someone at the LA? Our links with the SEN department ( or whatever they call the section that deals with EHC Plans) have been supportive and it feels like they are on dd's side.
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Post by corkwing on Jan 8, 2016 14:08:52 GMT
I agree with Pluto: she doesn't sound to me like a child who would cope in a mainstream school. Or, if she could, that it would be pretty much at the limit of her coping skills. If she's having to spend a lot of her resources in just managing to cope with the environment then I'd think there wouldn't be much left to use for learning.
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